renowned billionaire environmentalist Giovanni Zito?’
Holly crossed the shuttle deck to the screen. ‘And where would we find Mister Zito?’
Artemis tapped a few keys, zooming in on Sicily.
‘At his world-famous Earth Ranch. Right here in Messina Province,’ he said.
Mulch stuck his head out of the bathroom. The rest of him was mercifully hidden behind the door. ‘Did I hear you talking about a Mud Man named Zito?’
Holly turned towards the dwarf, then kept right on turning. ‘Yes. So what? And for heaven’s sake close the door.’
Mulch pulled the door so only a crack remained. ‘I was just watching a bit of human television in here, as you do. Well, there’s a Zito on CNN. Do you think it’s the same person?’
Holly grabbed a remote control from the table.
‘I really hope not,’ she said. ‘But I’d bet my life it is.’
A group of humans appeared on the screen. They were gathered in what looked like a prefabricated laboratory, and each wore a white coat. One stood out from the rest. He was in his mid-forties, with tanned skin, strong, handsome features and long, dark hair curling over his collar. He wore rimless glasses and a lab coat. A striped
Versace shirt protruded from under his white lapels.
‘Giovanni Zito,’ said Artemis.
‘It is incredible, really,’ Zito was telling a reporter in slightly accented English. ‘We have sent crafts to other planets, and yet we have no idea what lies beneath our feet. Scientists can tell us the chemical make-up of Saturn’s rings, but we don’t honestly know what lies at the centre of our own planet.’
‘But probes have been sent down before,’ said the reporter, trying to pretend he hadn’t just picked up this knowledge from his earpiece.
‘Yes,’ agreed Zito. ‘But only to a depth of about nine miles. We need to get through to the outer core itself, over one thousand eight hundred miles down.
Imagine if the currents of liquid metal in the outer core could be harnessed.
There’s enough free energy in that metal to power mankind’s machines forever.‘
The reporter was sceptical — at least, the real scientist speaking in his earpiece told him to be sceptical. ‘But this is all speculation, Doctor Zito. Surely a voyage to the centre of the Earth is nothing but a fantasy? Possible only in the pages of science fiction.’
A brief flash of annoyance clouded Giovanni Zito’s features. ‘This is no fantasy, sir, I assure you. This is no fantastical voyage. We are sending an unmanned probe, bristling with sensors. Whatever is down there, we will find it.’
The reporter’s eyes widened in panic as a particularly technical question came through his earpiece. He listened for several seconds, mouthing the words as he heard them.
‘Doctor Zito, eh… This probe you are sending down, I believe it will be encased in one hundred million tonnes of molten iron at about five and a half thousand degrees Celsius. Is that correct?’
‘Absolutely,’ confirmed Zito.
The reporter looked relieved. ‘Yes. I knew that. Anyway, my point is, it will take several years to gather so much iron. So why did you ask us here today?’
Zito clapped his hands excitedly. ‘This is the wonderful part. As you know, the core probe was a long-term project. I had planned to accumulate the iron over the next ten years. But now, laser drilling has revealed a deep ore body of haematite, iron ore, on the bottom edge of the crust, right here in Sicily. It’s incredibly rich, perhaps eighty-five per cent iron. All we need to do is detonate several charges inside that deposit and we will have our molten iron. I have already secured the mining permits from the government.’
The reporter asked the next question all on his own. ‘So, Doctor Zito, when do you detonate?’
Giovanni Zito removed two thick cigars from his lab coat pocket.
‘We detonate today,’ he said, passing a cigar to the reporter. ‘Ten years early.
This is a historic moment.’ Zito drew the office curtains, revealing a fenced-off area of scrubland outside the window. A metallic section of piping protruded from the earth in the centre of the half-mile-square enclosure. As they watched, a crew of workmen clambered out of the piping, moving hurriedly away from the opening. Wisps of gaseous coolant spiralled from the pipe. The men climbed into a golf trolley and exited the compound. They took shelter in a concrete bunker at the perimeter.
‘There are several megatons of TNT buried at strategic points inside the ore body,’ explained Zito. ‘If this was detonated on the surface, it would cause an earthquake measuring seven on the Richter scale.’
The reporter swallowed nervously. ‘Really?’
Zito laughed. ‘Don’t worry. The charges are shaped. The blast is focused down and in. The iron will be liquefied and begin its descent to the Earth’s core, carrying the probe with it. We will feel nothing.’
‘Down and in? You’re sure about that?’
‘Positive,’ said Zito. ‘We are perfectly safe here.’
On the wall behind the Italian doctor a speaker squawked three times. ‘Dottori Zito,’ said a gruff voice. ‘All clear. All clear.’
Zito picked up a black remote detonator from the desk.
‘The time has come,’ he said dreamily. He looked straight into the camera. ‘My darling Belinda, this is for you.’
Zito pressed the button and waited, wide-eyed. The room’s other occupants, the dozen or so scientists and technicians, turned anxiously to various readout panels and monitors.
‘We have detonation,’ announced one.
Nine miles below ground, forty-two shaped charges exploded simultaneously, liquefying one hundred and eighteen million tonnes of iron. The rock content was pulverized and absorbed by the metal. A pillar of smoke blew out of the cylindrical opening, but there was no detectable vibration.
‘The probe is functioning at one hundred per cent,’ said a technician.
Zito breathed out. ‘That was our big worry. Even though the probe is designed for exactly these conditions, the world has never seen this kind of explosion before.’ He turned to another lab worker. ‘Any movement?’
The man hesitated before answering. ‘Yes, Doctor Zito. We have vertical movement. Five metres per second. Exactly as you hypothesized.’
Below the Earth’s crust, a behemoth of iron and rock began its painstaking descent towards the Earth’s core. It chugged and churned, bubbling and hissing, prising apart the mantle below it. Inside the molten mass, a grapefruit-sized probe continued to broadcast data.
Spontaneous euphoria erupted in the laboratory. Men and women hugged each other. Cigars were lit and champagne corks popped. Someone even pulled out a violin.
‘We are on our way,’ shouted a jubilant Zito, lighting the reporter’s cigar. ‘Man is going to the centre of the Earth. Look out below!’
In the stolen LEP shuttle, Holly froze the picture. Zito’s triumphant features were spread across the screen.
‘Look out below,’ she repeated glumly. ‘Man is coming to the centre of the Earth.’
The moods in the shuttle ranged from glum to desolate. Holly was taking it especially hard. The entire fairy civilization was under threat yet again, and this time Commander Root wasn’t around to meet the challenge. Not only that, but, since the LEP pursuit pods had blown out their communications, there was no way to warn Foaly about the probe.
‘I have no doubt he already knows,’ said Artemis. ‘That centaur monitors all the human news channels.’
‘But he doesn’t know that Opal Koboi is giving Zito the benefit of her fairy knowledge.’ Holly pointed at Giovanni’s image on the screen. ‘Look at his eyes. The poor man has been mesmerized so many times, his pupils are actually ragged.’
Artemis stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘If I know Foaly, he’s been monitoring this project since its initiation. He probably already has a contingency plan.’
‘I’m sure he has. A contingency plan for a crackpot scheme in ten years’ time that will probably never work.’
